Organizing your own stuff

I get a little push-back sometimes when I say things like, If it isn't code, do it in-house.

Here's the best way I know to explain it:

Think for a moment about all the things that are in your house right now.

Every drawer, every garage box, every pantry shelf.

Now, imagine hiring someone to take all of your stuff and “organize it better.”

But here’s the catch: you won’t be involved.

You’ll go on a one-week vacation. And while you’re gone, they’ll pull out every little item in every little box and decide on “just the right” place to put it.

Then they’ll leave, and you’ll come back to a “perfectly organized” home! Yay!

Yeah. Not something most folks would want.

Sure, we all wish our stuff was better organized.

And it would be great to have someone else to do the organizing.

But if you're like me, it's hard enough to find things that you yourself have filed away.

If I hired someone else to do it, I'd be spending the next 6 months calling them every day to locate a screwdriver or a nail clipper or a handkerchief.

Still, you could hire a home organizer to help you decide what to keep, what to throw away, and how best to store things based on how you expect to use them.

And you could hire an extra hand or two to help you do the moving of things from one shelf to another.

But the actual organizing of all your stuff? You really need to be closely involved in that.

Here's the thing:

Your CRM data is some of the most important stuff that you own.

And your CRM system is the home where you and that data will live together for a long time.

If you want a home for your constituent data that's easy to use, you can hire help to figure out how to organize it well.

But you probably want to be very hands-on with the process of structuring, editing, and organizing it.

If you possibly can, do it in-house.

All the best,
A.

Why do (almost) all the CRM work in-house

You probably know already, there are many things you could hire outside CRM help for.

But there’s a difference between hiring someone to do the work for you and hiring them to do it with you.

In almost every case, I encourage you to do as much of the CRM management in-house as you possibly can.

Everything in-house?

Yep, almost everything.

This means you personally, or staff members you can rely upon.

But why?

Doing the work in-house puts you in the driver's seat, and leaves you with a system that your team fully controls and understands.

For anything that you hire out, if you want to understand how it really works, you’ll need to budget significant time and effort (and probably more billable work) to be trained on its intricacies and nuances.

Really, everything?

As a rule of thumb, I recommend this:

If it doesn't involve custom code or direct database manipulation, do it in-house.

In other words, if it can be done in your browser, do it in-house.

Sure, get some professional advice where you need it. Talk with a coach or a consultant to work out the right strategy.

But remember that this system will be your online office, and a daily work environment for you and your staff.

You'll need to be as familiar with it as you are with your own office or your own home.

And building that familiarity starts from the very beginning.

If it isn't custom code, do it in-house.

All the best,
A.

“All you want” advisory support

For the past few months I've been offering an unlimited advisory support plan to my clients, and I have to say I'm loving it!

So are the clients:

“Your expertise was invaluable. We had an expert in our corner to answer both technical and user questions if needed. I’m sure we could have worked through everything but it would have taken so much more time. Having you as part of our team allowed us to directly target an issue and solve it, instead of finding, researching, planning a resolution, and implementing it.”

“This is exactly what we need!”

So what's so great about this arrangement?

Something beautiful happens when we stop charging for every conversation:

• Clients ask me all kinds of things they would never have asked on an hourly or per-request pricing model -- and therefore they learn all kinds of things and become more proficient at supporting themselves. That's what I want!

• As a result, their systems are better organized and more secure, and they actually understand what their systems are doing.

• Naturally this increases trust in the relationship, and the client's own understanding of their system's strengths and weaknesses, as well as my understanding of their business goals and limitations.

• This then makes it easier to discuss the real value proposition of any specific non-advisory work they might be considering. (Sometimes they come to me for that; sometimes they don't, which is fine. The point is that they're making smart business decisions.)

The motto is, essentially, "I won't do it for you, but I will do it with you."

They have questions, I answer them.

If it needs a demonstration, I make a short video, or we jump on a screen-sharing call to work through it together.

I want to empower these organizations to excel in their mission outcomes, and this arrangement makes that so much easier.

Not all of my offerings will fit this "all you can eat" model, but for advisory work it's working out great.

All the best,
A.

CiviCRM Montreal

I've already told you that CiviCRM Manchester is just a few weeks away.

If that's too far to travel or the timing is not right, you might think about CiviCRM Montreal, coming up at the end of February.

These in-person events are The Place To Be when you're ready to spend a couple of days meeting the community, learning new ideas, and making CiviCRM everything you want it to be.

Check out CiviCRM Montreal here.

I'm going. I hope you are too.

All the best,
A.

How to eat an elephant

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

So I'm planning my travel for CiviCRM Manchester at the end of November.

It's always more complex than I expect.

• Primary ccommodations with the right dates, amenities, and location

• Flights with the right dates and manageable layovers

• Secondary overnight accommodations after the post-conference sprint

• Managing my own work schedule with travel and time zones

• Deciding how much to pack

• Getting nutritious meals and a good rest during of all this moving about

• Everything at a reasonable price

There are multiple options for everything, but everything has to fit together smoothly.

Experience helps. I've done this plenty of times before.

I even have a checklist to help me make sure I'm covering all the bases.

Because the biggest help is breaking it down into small pieces.

Even the most complex travel plans are just a series of small decisions and small actions.

Here's the thing:

Complexity is a real concern for almost any significant undertaking.

Getting all the pieces to fit together requires some careful attention.

And bad assumptions in one small area will cascade into problems in other areas.

But each piece, however intertwined it might be with the others, is only a single decision, or a single task.

When you're working out your staff workflows, or your membership journeys, for future improvements to your CRM, it's all connected. And sometimes it can feel a little overwhelming.

But just as I'm teaching all my coaching clients, you can do it, and have great results, by breaking it down into small tasks, devising good checklists, checking your assumptions about each component, and implementing each part carefully.

Plan the work; then work the plan.

Eat that elephant one bite at a time.

All the best,
A.

You’ve got options

Let's say you go see your doctor about knee pain, and she gathers enough good information to make a good diagnosis:

“You've got a hyper-phalangeal retraction of the upper metaparkus.” (Yeah, I made that up. Thanks for playing along.)

The next question is: what are you going to do about it?

Because there's never just one option.

You'll be making the decision based on a number of factors:

Severity of the pain
Your sense of urgency
Likelihood of things improving (or worsening) without treatment
Your risk tolerance
Likelihood that a certain treatment will work
What you can afford

Based on all that and more, and with professional advice, you might decide on one or more of these paths forward:

• surgery

• medication

• physical therapy

• lifestyle changes

• watchful waiting

• … and the perennial alternative in any situation: do nothing and live (or die) with it.

What this means for you:

Maybe you can guess where I'm going here.

Your CRM strategy can be boiled down to a succession of efforts at solving problems and reaching for opportunities, very much like taking care of your own health.

When you got a problem to solve, and have taken the time to diagnose it properly, you still have a number of options for moving forward.

The more you can give careful consideration to …

your sense of urgency,
your risk tolerance,
your desire for improvement,
and the resources you can apply to the situation,

… the more easily you'll be able to move forward with clarity and purpose.

It's no one's position to tell you that you've made the “wrong decision.”

But hopefully you'll make it with appropriate reflection on your own priorities.

All the best,
A.

Knee surgery?

Imagine you visit your doctor and say, "Doctor, my knee hurts. What should I do?"

The doctor says, "You need reconstructive knee surgery. See my staff on your way out to get scheduled."

Would you be ready to schedule surgery based on that?

What if she showed you glowing testimonials from dozens of knee-pain suffers whom she'd helped with her surgical procedure?

Now would you be ready to schedule surgery?

I'm no doctor, but something important is missing here: diagnosis.

And a good diagnosis requires gathering good information.

Before prescribing a remedy, you'd expect a good doctor to diagnose the cause of the problem. And before diagnosing the cause of your knee pain, you'd expect her to consider things like:

Age
Physical activities
Body mass
Recent injuries
Family history
Medical imaging results
Other test results
... or anything more than a mere report of pain.

So what does this have to do with CRM strategy and nailing your development goals?

Just this:

Symptoms are easy to see:

Your knee hurts.
Your membership renewals are tapering off.
Your recent attendance is down.
Your data is confusing and hard to analyze.

But the cause is usually not obvious — until you can gather more information. And not just any information, but the right information.

Even if others with similar problems have been happy with one solution or another, without a proper diagnosis there's literally no reason to think it would help you.

Notice the problem.

Gather relevant information.

Decide on a diagnosis.

And then you can start thinking about whether one solution or another is right for you. (Hint: There's rarely only one option.)

All the best,
A.

Unlikely connections

A solar eclipse passed through my part of the world today.

I had some proper eclipse glasses and was running errands around town, so now and then I'd check the progress of the eclipse.

And literally every time I did, some total stranger would strike up a conversation with me.

I would offer them my glasses so they could take a look, and we'd chat for a brief moment.

It happened over and over. A little human connection between complete strangers, people you'd assume have very little in common.

Sometimes there are conditions on everyone's mind that bring us together and allow us to forget our differences, overcome our shyness, and connect for just a minute.

Here's the thing:

Your audience — your donors and members, your staff, your board — may seem to have very different things on their mind from you, or even from each other.

But if you can find where their interest overlaps yours, then you'll have found an opportunity for connection.

All the best,
A.

Lagging indicators

Obviously, leading indicators are great for knowing if you're on the right track to reach your goals.

So why would you ever want to pay attention to lagging indicators?

By definition, lagging indicators are a sign that you've been doing something right. Because somehow you've achieved a good result.

This means lagging indicators are great for assessing processes that you might repeat later — because if something has worked in the past, you might be able to look back and figure out why it worked.

To build on yesterday's examples:

If you've had success losing pounds before, that successful lagging indicator can point you to steps that could bring similar results in your next effort.

If you've seen success building up a store of cash in the bank before, that successful lagging indicator can point you to some smart behavior that might be worth repeating.

If you've seen a spike in your revenue at any previous annual gala, that successful lagging indicator can point you to something that may be worth repeating at your next gala.

As any financial advisor will tell you, past performance does not guarantee future results.

But patterns can provide clues.

And if you're gathering data as you go, and assessing it rationally, a successful lagging indicator can be like a beacon pointing you in the right direction for your future efforts.

But of course, you have to gather the data, and you have to analyze it rationally.

If you’re doing that, there’s a lot to be gained by paying attention to lagging indicators.

All the best,
A.

Leading indicators

Have you ever wanted to be 20 pounds lighter?

Or have a million dollars in the bank?

Or double the revenue of your annual gala?

Being 20 pounds lighter is what we can call a "lagging indicator." It indicates that you've been doing something right.

Lagging indicators are results-oriented. You can’t usually just snap your fingers and make results (or lagging indicators) happen.

So how do you end up with a lagging indicator that you desire?

That’s where "leading indicators" come in.

A leading indicator is something that you can observe and measure in time increments that are much more frequent and regular than the lagging indicator.

For example, a leading indicator for losing 20 pounds might be observing a half-pound weight loss each week.

Or a leading indicator for having a million dollars in the bank might be that your savings grows by $1000 per month.

Or a leading indicator for doubling your revenue at your annual gala might be adding 10 new sponsors and 50 new participants (above what you had last year) each month leading up to the event.

How you make those things happen is up to you.

But here's the thing:

You can know early on if you're on track. And you can change tactics if you're not.

You don't have to wait for your daughter's wedding to find out if you're likely to fit into that outfit.

You don't have to wait until you retire to find out if you're likely to have a million bucks in the bank.

You don't have to wait until the night of the gala to find out if you're likely to hit your goal.

The first month, even the first week, you can already plot the trend, and if it doesn't look great, you can adjust.

That's the beauty of leading indicators.

It's like seeing the future.

Which is great.

Because when the future becomes the present, there's no time left for adjusting.

All the best,
A.

Time vs money: not a simple trade-off

It's true there are times when getting something done is a mere question of deciding to spend time or money:

Mowing your lawn
Changing the oil in your car
Power washing your driveway
Building a house
Printing and mailing your direct appeal letters
Performing data entry

All of those have one thing in common:

You really only care that it's done well, and once it's done you'll probably never need to understand how it was done.

So yes, you can choose to hire someone else or do it yourself, depending on your interests and your budget of time and money.

But so many things are not like this.

No matter how little free time and how much money you have, it's very hard to hire somebody to do these things for you.

Lose weight
Learn a language
Excel in a sport
Make friends
Raise your children
Create a healthy work environment for your staff

For these things, there is no simple one-time deliverable. It's an ongoing process in which you personally must be involved.

Sure, you can hire an expert advisor to help make your own work more efficient and effective. And spending some money can save you a significant amount of time (and frustration).

But it's not always a simple one-to-one trade-off.

What about developing the best workflows for your staff, and the right tools to help them work effectively?

Is that something you can just outsource as a one-time deliverable and expect ongoing success?

No, it's not. That's something you and your team need to be closely involved with, now and into the future.

All the best,
A.

“Never losing” is not much fun

Overheard today, from a sports coach:

You'll never win at anything by sitting on the couch.

Of course you'll never lose at anything either, but is "never losing" all you want out of life?

Aiming for goals is risky.

If you set a goal and don't make it, you'll have to admit failure.

You could avoid that by not setting goals.

But is "never failing" all you want out of your professional life?

All the best,
A.

Policies and exceptions

Every policy will merit an exception now and then.

So will every standard procedure.

But if you're more often making exceptions than sticking to policy, one of two things is happening:

1. You have a working policy that's not written down and probably should be; or

2. You don't really have a policy at all.

All the best,
A.

Teamwork

Yesterday I ran into an old friend who runs a local brew pub, and he told me how busy he's been since they opened about a year ago.

Like, running-himself-ragged busy. And making-dangerous-mistakes busy.

It was the dangerous mistakes that woke him up. He told me that, as the brewer, the wrong mistake could be fatal.

That's when he started to make sure that he delegates tasks that can be delegated, and that he schedules actual time off.

The great thing, he told me, is that “this place runs a lot better when I act like a CEO instead of washing glasses behind the bar.”

Here's the thing:

If your organization is any larger than a one-person operation, I hope you're finding ways to delegate.

After all, the success of your organization does not depend on the ED's willingness to stay late and empty trash cans.

If you're looking for things that you can delegate, your CRM may be one place to start.

Staff and volunteers can take on many of the tasks of data entry, reporting, and configuration.

I hope you're trying — or will try — some of the following:

• Define rules and permissions that will allow someone other than the system admin to get things done.

• Conduct regular trainings so that staff can learn new workflows, policies, and procedures.

• Consider a few smart configurations such as customized forms for data entry, so staff can perform these tasks without needing full administrative rights to the CiviCRM back-end.

Remember, the great thing about working in a team is that it's a team.

It's not only okay to let other people get hands-on with your data, it's a valuable step in maximizing your organization’s mission potential.

All the best,
A.

Slapping mosquitoes

Mosquitoes are a fact of life in my part of the world.

At any backyard barbecue, you'll probably be slapping at one or two.

But when your patio lounge is overrun with them, maybe something is up.

That unused kiddie pool under the deck, that's been collecting rainwater for weeks? Maybe you could empty that.

Or, you could just keep slapping at the mosquitoes one by one.

Here's the thing:

Duplicate contacts, spam form submissions, incomplete data — all of these are going to happen with any CRM system.

You'll have to smack them down as they appear.

But when there's a spike in any of them, a little investigation might turn up a simple cause.

You can take some time to address that cause.

Or you could just keep slapping at them one by one.

All the best,
A.

Good goals are a little scary

Are you afraid of setting goals?

You probably are, at least a little. That would be normal.

In fact, good goals should be a little scary.

After all, setting a goal means defining some standard by which your work can be judged.

And that means you might fail.

So you'll need to face some fears:

• Fear of responsibility

• Fear of embarrassment

• Fear of real work

• Fear of real change

All that fear is the reason most people have dreams but aren't pursuing realistic goals to achieve them.

If you find that you have big dreams without corresponding measurable goals, ask yourself:

Which of those four fears might be stopping you?

Just naming that fear honestly is a starting point to overcoming the fear, setting the goal, and putting in the work to make it happen.

All the best,
A.

The project that isn’t

Half of my job is talking myself out of new business.

When a prospective client reaches out about starting a new project, one of the first things we'll do is get on the phone together.

It's a chance to make introductions, see if we're a good fit for each other, and dig in a little on what they're trying to achieve.

If you were eavesdropping on my conversation, you might get the impression that I don't want to work with them.

It might even sound like I'm trying to talk them out of working with me, or out of doing the project at all.

That's because it's kinda true.

Some of the best calls I've had in the past few months ended with me and the client agreeing happily on one of these conclusions:

• The problem they're facing is one of policy, people, or politics, and no CRM improvement is going to fix that.
  

• The features they were hoping to build would be fun to have but won't actually solve a valuable business problem.
  

• At their current scale, there's a much cheaper low-tech way to solve this problem.
  

• Instead of diving into the project now, it's better to do a little more research and work out some specific measurable goals that are worth pursuing.
  

• They actually do have a good business case and valuable, reasonable, measurable goals that would likely be met by this project. Try as I might, I've “failed to talk them out of it.” So we schedule next steps to move forward.

Any of those outcomes is a win.

All of them are far better than starting a project that doesn't deserve to be started.

All the best,
A.

Cows vs Sharks

Would you guess that cows kill more people every year than sharks do?

Come on, didn't you see Jaws? That's just crazy talk.

Right. But folks who measure this stuff say otherwise.

According to a few sources like this one, the average annual fatality counts go like this:

• Cows: 22 (U.S. only)

• Sharks: 5 (worldwide)

Here's the thing:

The mere sense that something is “obvious” is not evidence that it’s actually true.

If you want to base your actions on what’s actually true, it's worth taking some measurements, and then paying attention to the results.

All the best,
A.

Pre-mortems

If your project or campaign doesn’t come off as well as you’d hoped, you’ll probably do some kind of post-mortem to assess what went wrong.

Why not try a pre-mortem next time?

Before you get deep into the project, look ahead. Imagine it all goes wrong. Consider what might make that happen.

Then decide how you’ll prevent those things from happening.

Here’s the thing:

You can't see all of the future. But you've been around enough to make some good guesses about a lot of it.

A little structured “time travel of the mind” is a decent way to make use of all that hard-earned insight.

All the best,
A.

Mystery custom fields

Last week I helped a client get her event registration forms sorted out.

She had a required field on the form, but it seemed like people were registering for the event without filling in that field at all.

How could that happen?

Turns out there were actually three different custom fields with the same label in her system.

Online registrants actually were filling in that required field, but her report was referencing a different field.

Once we figured that out, the short term solution was pretty simple:

We just made sure that the report and the registration form were using the same fields.

But the bigger question is:

How did this organization wind up with three custom fields that all ask the same question?

She wasn't quite sure herself.

Nobody seems to remember who created those fields, or when, or why.

Here's the thing:

When you don’t have one dedicated person in your organization who is responsible for your CRM system, things like this can happen — a lot.

And you can lose a lot of time trying to figure out what's going on.

I'm working with her to clean up those fields, decide which to keep and which to delete, and merge the data into the remaining field appropriately.

But more importantly:

We're working now towards identifying one responsible person — one in-house systems expert — who can help ensure things like this don't happen again.

This person doesn't have to become the best in the world at managing CiviCRM.

And they don't have to do every bit of configuration themselves, either.

But by being the designated in-house expert, they will both gain valuable expertise over time, and be a position to help everyone keep the system running smoothly.

Who’s your in-house expert?

All the best,
A.